mu-shu

Petals falling
like the paper climax
to a chinese firecracker – the kind
you find in striped tents in mid-size
american cities beside the summer evening
midas touch of fifty cent sparklers and
the broken molar of a
snap-dragon thrown outside
in the driveway on the forth of july.

A world where everything
is made of paper, including
the lanterns. Smug whale-ribbed
lanterns that hang in red abacus –
each with a cutless of light
held in their paper bellies. A thirsty
gobi red, like the sun burned through
ricepaper eyelids. All on a the new year's eve
of the year of the dog.

Someone's windowsill geraniums:
a bobbing and bearded red
sidestreet dragon.

Bazaars and bicycles –
old beach cruisers ridden by
university students raised in cities
of babel architecture of nine dialects
of two lit candles against the wind,
the butterfly weight
of a teacup in grandmother's hand
ancient as scrolls, dead sea
of her divination lines.

Gunpowder, literature
car factories. The yellow river panting
and moving as slowly as
the year of the dog. The carp creak
of fishermen in the bay, christless
and the blurt of sparrows
over shantytowns.

600 wires
an hour, 6600 a day,
fingers breaking like circuits,
like ripples over the reflection
of the moon.